On September 18th, the new director of Instituto de Bioética took office in the presence of the Rectress of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Isabel Capeloa Gil. The researcher Sandra Martins Pereira, PhD in Bioethics and the first Portuguese to be part of the direction of the European Association of Palliative Care, assumes the direction of an Institute that was created in 2002 by the Superior Council of the Portuguese Catholic University, with the commitment to extend and adapt the research work in Bioethics to new developments in science and technology.

In her inauguration speech, Sandra Martins Pereira addressed the internal re-evaluation process that the Bioethics Institute underwent, which resulted in a report that proposes, among other points, its integration in Universidade Católica Portuguesa's Medical School, in a way still to be defined.

The new director of the Institute intends to promote a "transformational change and organizational culture, which includes the definition of a strategic plan and the realization of incremental changes that allow transformation and reinvention". The researcher intends to prepare Instituto de Bioética for its integration in the Medical School and "make it a center of excellence and national and international reference in research, education, reflection and discussion of bioethical issues, problems and challenges at the service of society," she concludes.

Between 1996 and 2003, Sandra Martins Pereira worked as a nurse in different university hospitals and was a professor at the University of the Azores between 2003 and 2013. In 2011, she completed her PhD in Bioethics at the Bioethics Institute, a program she currently coordinates. Later, she did post-doctoral training and participated in research projects related to end-of-life ethical issues and palliative care in countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium. Currently, she is a FCT principal researcher at CEGE - Centro de Estudos em Gestão e Economia da Universidade Católica Portuguesa, being co-principal researcher in the area of Sustainability and Ethics.

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The research produced by the researchers Sandra Martins Pereira and Paulo Hernández-Marrero, subsequently published in the form of a scientific article in the most prestigious journal in the scientific area of palliative care worldwide (Palliative Medicine), and which also resulted in a post published in the blog of the European Association for Palliative Care (the largest palliative care association at an international level).

The publication of the study by researchers from the Institute of Bioethics and the Centre for Studies in Management and Economics (CEGE), entitled "Nursing competencies across different levels of palliative care provision: Highlighting the need for further research and international collaboration", is in the TOP 10 posts published in this blog in the second half of 2020.

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